1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to management of menu items, and more particularly, to apparatuses and methods for arranging menu items in a paging manner and rearranging the paged menu items for crossing page(s).
2. Description of the Related Art
To an increasing extent, display panels are being used for electronic devices, such as computers, mobile phones, media player devices, and gaming devices, etc., as human-machine interfaces. The display panel may be a touch panel which is capable of detecting the contact of objects thereon, wherein users may interact with the touch panel by using pointers, styluses, or their fingers, etc. Also, the display panel may be provided with a graphical user interface (GUI) for users to view the menu items representing installed or built-in applications or widgets. Generally, the size of a display panel of an electronic device is designed to be small, and the number of menu items may be more than what the display panel may be capable of displaying. To solve this problem, the menu items may be divided into groups, so that the display panel may display one specific group of menu items at a time. As shown in FIGS. 1a-1d, a total number of 52 menu items are divided into 4 groups, wherein each is displayed in a respective page. The 4 pages may be configured in a horizontal manner, in which the user would drag an object on the display panel from the right to the left to turn to a next page. Alternatively, the 4 pages may be configured in a vertical manner, in which the user would drag an object on the display panel from the top to the bottom to turn to a next page.
Conventionally, if a user wishes to rearrange the groups of menu items, e.g. relocate a specific menu item of group 1 to group 4, the user would need to move the specific menu item from Page 1, across Page 2 and Page 3, to Page 4, as shown in FIG. 2. Specifically, during the first time interval t1, the user drags the specific menu item to the right edge of Page 1 until Page 2 is displayed with the second group of menu items. During the second time interval t2, the dragging of the specific menu item continues to the right edge of Page 2 until Page 3 is displayed with the third group of menu items. During the third time interval t3, the dragging of the specific menu item continues further to the right edge of Page 3 until Page 4 is displayed with the fourth group of menu items. Lastly, during the fourth time interval t4, the user may drag the specific menu item away from the right edge of Page 4 and then to a desired position in Page 4. Accordingly, the conventional way of rearranging menu items is time consuming and complex, especially when the number of pages to cross increases. Thus, it is desirable to have an efficient and intuitive way of rearranging menu items.